Dane Miller leads the way for Rutgers in 63-54 win over Auburn, scoring 17 points

Saed Hindash/The Star-LedgerRutgers' Jonathan Mitchell once again helped the Scarlet Knights to a win over Auburn in Pittsburgh.

PITTSBURGH — Before last week's game against Marist, Mike Rice had a message to Dane Miller. No more fancy set plays, no more orchestrated attempts to snap his best player into taking command of a game. No, Rice tried a different approach: he took the training wheels off.

"Just go," Rice told him.

Now, it may be hard to reel him back in. In a game plagued by stop-and-go offenses and up-and-down flow, Miller was one of the few constants for Rutgers in its 63-54 win over Auburn in the SEC/Big East Invitational yesterday afternoon. The Scarlet Knights' sophomore had 17 points and 10 rebounds — his second straight double-double — and finally did what Rutgers had been waiting for.

He took over.

"At certain times, we're going to play with our pace," Rice said afterwards. "Maybe a little slower pace, limit the possessions. But we're still going to have to give the ball to Dane and let him go every once and a while."

Without Mike Rosario to do the bulk of the scoring this season, that burden for Rutgers (6-2) immediately fell on Miller's shoulder. But for the first four games, the 6-7 sophomore struggled somewhat with the responsibility. Then in the next two games, the scoring dropped off almost entirely as he scored just two and three points against St. Joe's and NJIT, respectively.

But against Marist, Miller felt it begin to click. He scored 12 and pulled down 10 rebounds.

"At the beginning of games, I'm usually telling jokes," Miller said. "But I felt like this one was a big one for me and the team. I knew had to come out with a lot of energy and if I had to hand out water during the 30-second timeouts to get everyone energy, I would do that."

After starting the game missing its first 12 shots from the floor, Rutgers was in search of an answer against an Auburn (3-5) team that was picked to finish last in the SEC. With his offense sputtering out of the gate for the third straight game, Rice was livid. Making his first return to his hometown of Pittsburgh since taking over at Rutgers, Rice threw down the gauntlet to his team.

"He told us we weren't being aggressive in the game plan like we were supposed to be," guard James Beatty said, who added 13 points. "We always talk about getting great starts to the game and you don't want to come out flat and let teams jump on us quickly. You always want to come out and throw the first punches. So during that first media timeout, he really got after us. I'm not going to repeat what he said, but he got in our faces."

Whatever Rice said, it worked. Beatty — who had just one field goal in his last 207 game minutes — drained a 3-pointer from the far corner and Rutgers was off and running. Only until Auburn made a last-ditch comeback attempt in the final two minutes was the final score in doubt. After Beatty's 3-pointer fell through, Rutgers outscored the Tigers 59-43 the rest of the way to break a dubious school streak.

It was the first time since 1999 that the Scarlet Knights defeated two BCS teams in the regular season.

"Coming into this season, our leading scorer — Mike Rosario — transferred," Miller said. "Hamady Ndiaye, the best defensive player in the conference, graduates. No one thought we would come out and start the season 6-2. We even questioned ourselves a little bit."

Somewhat like what Miller himself went through. Doubt — and now after a second convincing game — a clearer direction of where he's headed.

"We have to be relentless," Miller said. "For us to have a chance in this conference or beat anybody, we have to be relentless."

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